With the eSleeper, we’ve truly reached the pinnacle of human civilization. While gutting old electronics for conversion into pet beds isn’t a new phenomenon (remember the old iMac fishbowls?), the advent of Twitter alongside inexpensive do-it-yourself Arduino boards means that all gadgets turned pet sleepers must now inform the world when such pets enter and/or exit each domicile.
In the case of the eSleeper—the creation of one Samuel Cox for his cat—an update gets blasted out to Twitter every time the cat exits the converted Apple eMac all-in-one.
Says Cox:
When the feline decides its nap-time, eSleeper’s automated lighting control turns on a relaxing wave of color inside an eMac, while greeting the cat with the iconic Macintosh start-up chime (keeping the legacy of the eMac). When the cat walks out, eSleeper turns off the lights and tweets to @eSleeper1, displaying various phrases along with how long the cat has occupied eSleeper.
Examples of the various phrases that get tweeted include: “31 minutes of uninterrupted sleep is beautiful,” and “Fuming!!! Had a catfight and was sent to bed. I’ve given it 41 minutes and I’m going out. Hopefully he’s still outside…”
All the generated tweets include the number of minutes the cat spent inside the eSleeper, a cool trick made possible via its programmable Arduino board:
An Ethernet Arduino is used to control eSleeper. Data is sent to the Arduino from an infra-red beam attached to the inside of the eMac. When the beam breaks, the Arduino turns on the RGB LED, talks to a sound shield to play the Macintosh startup chime and records how long the cat’s been inside. When the beam is broken again, the Arduino turns off the LED and tweets a random phrase with the time spent inside.
Does your bed do that? Yeah, my bed is boring, too. Check out the above video to see eSleeper in action, then block out some time this weekend to look for a human-size eMac.